Month: May, 2012

So today I finished my last presentation ever in my whole uni life. Tomorrow is going to be my last lecture ever. Wow, its quite hard to believe I actually made it this far. It still feels surreal that I’m going to be a working adult in another few more weeks. I’ll just cherish every day I have left before stepping into the rat race in the corporate working world.

A few things I’ve learnt from working in groups throughout my entire 3 years of degree :-

1. If possible, group with people always sitting at the front (or second front) row because they are usually the hardworking ones.

2. Once a group is formed, take down everyone’s name, phone numbers, and email address to search them up on Facebook.

3. Once a Facebook connection is established, create a private group to discuss matters relating to the group assignment.

4. Distribution of work should be fair and equal. Either each choose their own subtopics or draw lots.

5. Group assignments should be 90% completed at least 2 days before the due date ( but this is not always the case as there are a few last minute workers)

6. To prevent the last minute people (LMP) from doing last minute work (LMW) thereby, placing the everyone’s mark in thegroup at jeopardy, these LMP should be given some notice before hand. Pestering is sometimes the key to get them to get their work done.

7. If all else fails, you either be at their mercy waiting for them to finished their part or do it yourself while grumbling away.

8. If it works, God have definitely heard my prayers and was gracious to our group. If it did not, He very well meant it for me to learn something from it, hence this post.

9. Standardization work is not an easy task and requires time. Before group members start doing any of their work, remind them to label their tables, figures, graphs, flowcharts, data and cite as well as reference them using a specific set of font type, size of font (12) , justification, 1.5 spacing etc. If not, the person standardizing everyone’s work will have a hell of a time.

10. Just to be sure that everyone in the group is clear of how the allocation of marks is like for the group assignment (some of them don’t bother to read the unit guide to check the marks allocation), post up the details in the Facebook group so that members know where to focus and what to write. If not, some nonsense crap shit will be written, just for the sake of getting their part done and off their chest.

11. For group presentation, at least one run through of the presentation must be done. If not, shit happens obviously. A time and venue must be set to do the practice and members should feel free to give any feedback, good or bad, on each other’s presentation.

12. It is essential to remind group member that this is a presentation, not an outing to the beach. Hence, dress accordingly.

13. Understand what you are presenting – try not to read off the paper or hold any paper/notes coz it may give the lecturer an impression that you do not understand your stuff well enough to be able to present it offhand. It is always best to put it in your own words.

14. Same as previously mentioned in point 13, never read off the slides. We all hate lecturers doing that so we shouldn’t too.

15. Good clarity, body language, eye contact, confidence is essential and most of all, enjoy the presentation.

16. Don’t hog on to all the credits the lecturers give you eventho you know well you deserve it. Show some sportsmanship by sharing the credits given to you with your other group mates and thank them for their effort and time in making the presentation a successful one (whether it is a good or bad one)…successfully bad and successfully good haha, get it?

There is always lots of things to learn in life that are NOT in the textbooks or lecture notes. This is one of them.

The Devil doesn’t need to get us into Satanism to defeat us. He doesn’t need to go that far. He just have to use distractions, even very small one like a bug flying around your head when you’re reading the bible to big ones like decision making or put idolatry in our lives; any kinds of idols are all around us, you name it we have it.

If all else fails, he will try to make a hypocrite out of us. A real good one.

Now isn’t that just scary? Going to church every Sunday, serving, singing we have conquered the devil when truth is, sometimes (or rather, many times) the devil conquered us even more times than we think he did? There you go, he just proven himself to be a master of deception.

Focus, be very alert, be on your toes, be watchful, be attentive, be on guard…and last but not least, our attitude to the devil should be “You ain’t seen nothing!” because he never meant us to get that far off his trap.

I just saw The Avengers and I thought it was just ‘meh’; giving it a 5/10 score because of the predictability of its storyline. It was very predictable for me like the moment I saw the superheroes I knew all well ends well and the moment I knew there was a portal opening to the darker/evil world I knew that wasn’t going to be much of a problem coz well in the end the heroes gonna save the day.

I just wish there were more suspense; like say for an example, the portal was going to open but not sure when or who, among the heroes, were the bad one causing the portal to open. You know, like throwing in a little mind play to keep viewers suspense.

It was obvious from the beginning that Loki was the antagonist and so it is already clear to us that he’s the one everybody needs to get rid of.

To spice things up, there should be like a love triangle thing whereby say, Natasha was Loki’s ex but now she’s with that hawkeyes so she’s kinda torn between two – making the viewers wonder which side is she exactly on; the good or the evil side? Ah, bottom line is – I came out of the movie feeling like I’ve eaten a half-eaten, half-cooked of half an egg. I want something more mind-bending, mind-blowing and mind-boggling. This movie is just not it.

Anyhoo, if you’ve watched Liar Game I don’t think any Hollywood dramas or movies out there can get as close to that level. Every second of every single scene kept me sitting at the edge of my chair, made my heart skipped a beat and made me flabbergasted. It was that thrilling.

After the movie I headed to Carrefour to buy milk and I encountered this really rude cashier. Lucky for him I was tired and was in a surprisingly good mood so I didn’t fight back but thank God my friend standing next to me did on my behalf. After reaching home, I finally felt regretful and stupid for not answering back at him. Then again, I didn’t want to turn all green hulk on that guy. I’m afraid of what kind of monster I’ll turn myself into when I’m angry. It’s almost like the story of that scary green hulk. When I get angry, I can’t think and act rashly. But I think i need to learn to be more impulsive at the right time such as this case. I should have told him off like bullets sparking off the gun. I’m surprised how I am not angry at all and didn’t utter a word back at him.